Both Ends of the Night Page 14

  “Nice of her. She didn’t drive all that way in the Ramblin’ Wreck, did she?” Rae’s ancient Rambler American was aptly named.

  Ricky grinned, triumph showing in his eyes. “No, she took my Porsche. I think I’ve finally convinced her that the Wreck is a menace to life itself. She’s even agreed to go look at cars with me later on this week.”

  “What do you think she’ll get?”

  “Well, I know what she wants—one of those sexy Japanese sports models. Whether she’ll accept it from me is another story.” He spread his hands helplessly. “The woman’s positively prickly about me spending money on her; it’s a wonder she doesn’t insist on paying rent.”

  “At least you know it’s you she loves and not your money.”

  “She’s left me no doubt on that score. But I swear… I had to marry your sister because I got her pregnant with Mick; now I may have to marry Red in order to get her to share the wealth.”

  “You’re seriously considering marriage?”

  “Sister Sharon, I’m the marryin’ kind.” He watched my face, smiling at what he saw there. “Yeah, I know—you’re thinking that I’m also the cheatin’ kind. Well, no more. Those days’re over.”

  I believed him—almost. Time would tell.

  “To get back to Zach,” I said, “how’s he doing?”

  “Fair to middling. He’s still awfully quiet, and you can tell he’s grieving. Last night when we went up to bed, we heard him crying. But he’s opened up enough to talk to both of us about missing Matty and his dad, and we’re taking care of him the best we know how.”

  “I’m really grateful to the two of you. Listen, I’m driving up to Los Alegres after I leave here; maybe I can pick up some of his clothes and other stuff. Is there anything you think he might want?”

  “He did mention that he wishes he’d brought his portable CD player. And there was something about a book he was reading and forgot to pack. Science fiction? Probably. See if you can locate it.”

  “I will, if I can get access to the house.”

  Behind me, Jerry Jackson exclaimed, “Voilà!”

  I turned and saw the drummer admiring the granddaddy of all Dagwood sandwiches. It must have contained half the contents of the fridge.

  “Thank God it’s tax deductible,” Ricky said.

  The flag flew at half-mast at Los Alegres Airport.

  I parked my MG by the terminal building and walked out onto the field to the gas pumps, where Bob Cuda was fueling a Bonanza. After the plane pulled away, I went over to the lineman. His shoulders were slumped, and he greeted me listlessly. “Nice tribute to Matty,” I said, motioning at the flagpole.

  “It’s the least we can do. Better for her than some goddamn politician. What brings you up here? You’re not still working on finding out who took the stuff from her plane, are you?”

  “No. John’s son is staying with friends of mine in the city, and I came up to get more clothes for him.”

  “So John’s still out of town. Does he even know about Matty?”

  I’d been watching the wind snap the flag around, but now I turned back to Bob, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice. “You know where he is?”

  “Uh-uh. He didn’t go into details, just said he’d be away and unreachable for a while.”

  He’d told the lineman, but not the woman he lived with—the woman he’d placed in extreme danger. “When did he tell you that?”

  “The day before he went. He wanted Matty to know he was thinking of her before the air show, so he asked me to put her good-luck lamb in the plane on Friday afternoon. I think it had some kind of message from him inside.” Bob frowned. “That lamb—was it one of the things she thought was stolen?”

  I nodded absently. At least the question of who returned the lamb to the plane was answered. “Did you mention to Matty that you knew John was out of town?”

  “No. The lamb was supposed to be a surprise, and I was afraid I’d give it away if I said anything. Do you know if she got the message, or whatever it was?”

  “She did.”

  “Well, at least she had that.”

  “Yes.” I looked out across the field. In spite of ideal weather conditions, there was a marked lack of activity today; Matty’s death seemed to have paralyzed the small airport. “Bob, did you hear about Matty’s mechanic, Ed Cutter?”

  “Getting shot to death? Yeah. It’s no surprise.”

  “Because he was into illegal activities?”

  “That was the rumor. Matthews, the other guy who was killed, too. Weird that it happened the same day Matty died.”

  “Did she know about Cutter?”

  “She couldn’t have; Matty went strictly by the book, and she’d’ve turned him in if she’d known. Cutter was a new mechanic, had only worked for her a couple of months. I tried to warn her, hinted around, but I don’t think I got through to her.”

  “If you tried, then other people must’ve, too. Not like her to ignore what her friends were saying—or not to pick up on rumors.”

  Cuda sighed. “Not like the old Matty, no. But she was different this past year. She was in love and didn’t spend much time here, except for lessons and to practice. You know how she always used to call us her airport family? Well, she’d left us for a real family.”

  “Speaking of family, have any of her relatives planned a memorial service?”

  Bob’s lips tightened. “You know her sister, the one in Red Bluff?”

  “Never met her.” Hadn’t known she existed.

  “Well, Mark Casazza met her when she was down last summer and remembered her name, so he called to ask what she had planned. She said she’d been in touch with the NTSB and the Sacramento County coroner’s office and would be down here later in the month to collect Matty’s things.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. If you ask me, the sister is one cold fish.”

  Unsentimental, that was for sure. Matty had mentioned a dysfunctional family; apparently they were even more so than mine. At least the McCones honored their dead. Of course, there was my paternal grandfather, whose ashes still resided in a closet at my father’s house. Grandpa had hated cemeteries, and so far nobody had been able to get it together to figure out what to do with his remains.

  “There will be a service, though,” Bob added. “Sunday afternoon. A bunch of us are going to fly to a favorite spot of Matty’s, say some words, swap some stories. You’re welcome, if you want to come—your boyfriend, too.”

  “You’re flying?” The words were out before I could stop them.

  To my surprise, Bob smiled. “So you’re on to me too. Turns out I haven’t been fooling anybody all these years. Yeah, I’m flying—with Mark. He promised not to do anything to scare me any more than I already am. Funny: all my life I wanted to fly but couldn’t get myself up into the air. But for Matty, I can do it.”

  His life was changing. Matty had made a difference to so many people; even in death she had that effect.

  I asked, “Where’s the special place?”

  “Out at the coast—Bodega Head. There’s a private airstrip not far away. Owner was a friend of Matty’s; he’s letting us use it.”

  I should have known. A couple of years before, Hy and I had come up to Los Alegres and flown out that way with Matty in the FBO’s Cessna 172. When we reached the headland overlooking the sea at the mouth of Bodega Bay, she’d asked me to take over the controls and had sat quietly in the left seat, looking down, her face serene and joyful. While Bodega Head was beautiful, it was no more so than many places along the coastline, and I wondered what had made it special for her.

  Now, with a stab of regret, I realized I never would know.

  Thirteen

  The woman behind the desk at the flight school was on the phone, so I went around and checked the schedule myself; only Gray Selby was instructing that day.

  “Doesn’t it just figure?” I muttered, running my finger down the column and noting the time he was due back
from his last lesson. Selby wouldn’t let a little thing like a death in the airport family disrupt his routine. Hell, he was probably out hustling Matty’s students!

  Back outside, I looked up at the hills and saw dark-bellied clouds piling above them; the wind had shifted, the air cooled. November weather, swiftly changing and hazardous to fliers. I remembered Matty sweeping the late-autumn sky with practiced eyes and saying to me, “When I see conditions like this, I know something’s coming in.”

  She spoke so authoritatively that I was sure the mystery of weather was about to be unraveled, and I eagerly asked, “What?”

  Shrugging, she replied, “Something.”

  The memory did not make me smile as it once would have. Instead I felt a fresh onslaught of grief and rage toward the person who’d had her killed.

  The rain started as I drove into the parking lot of Seabrook’s Christmas Tree Farm—big, splatting drops that kept me confined to the MG for a few minutes until it let up some. The red-and-green building was decked out in a garland tied with gold and silver ribbons, sodden now. Wood sculptures of reindeer cavorted on the narrow strip of lawn. A dirty white pickup was parked to one side, and I knocked on the double doors, hoping to find Wes Payne.

  After a few seconds a bolt was thrown and one door swung open. Payne peered out at me. No jolly Santa Claus look-alike today, his face was pale, eyes reddened, mouth dour. He blinked in surprise when he recognized me.

  “You didn’t have to drive all the way up here just because I called.”

  “You called me? When?” I stepped inside, wiping my muddy feet on a mat.

  “Couple of hours ago. I wasn’t sure I should, but the wife said it was the right thing to do.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Zach’s missing. The wife and I spent the weekend down at our daughter’s in Danville; when we heard about Matty we tried to call the folks that the boy was supposed to be staying with, but didn’t get any answer. Late last night we finally reached them, and it turns out he didn’t go there after all, because their boy came down sick—so sick that they spent most of the last three days with him at Santa Rosa Kaiser.”

  “Oh, God, I should’ve let you know! Zach flew down to the city with me on Friday. He’s staying with friends of mine.” Stupid of me not to realize the Paynes would worry!

  “Well, that’s a relief. How’s he doing?”

  “Fair. The people he’s with are good with kids, and they’ve taken a liking to him, so he’s in good hands.”

  “He’s welcome to stay with us, you know.”

  Of course Payne couldn’t be expected to realize that Zach was in danger, and I didn’t want to waste time explaining. “I know, but he didn’t want to come back to Los Alegres; being in a place that doesn’t hold any memories may be helping him deal with what’s happened.”

  Payne nodded somberly. “Maybe that’s for the best, given what I found at their house. I went over there yesterday, on the off chance Zach might be holed up. The place’s been trashed. That’s another reason I called you.”

  “Vandalism?”

  Payne shrugged, avoiding my eyes.

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No. It shames me to admit it, but I thought Zach might’ve wrecked the house when he heard about Matty.”

  “It’s a perfectly natural assumption,” I said, although I couldn’t imagine the quiet, well-mannered boy doing such a thing. “What about here at the sales office? Was anything disturbed?”

  “Now that you ask, somebody went through the files and desk drawers. I didn’t pay attention to it at first, because I thought you and Matty might’ve left it that way the other day. But later I remembered you’d put it back the way it was.”

  “I gather you have a key to the house.”

  “Uh-huh. John and I had a good-neighbor checkup arrangement.”

  “May I borrow it? I want to pick up some things for Zach, and I can look over the damage at the same time.”

  Payne took a set of keys from his pocket and handed them to me. “The one marked with nail polish is for the front door—the wife’s system.”

  “Thanks. I’ll bring them back, and then we’ll talk some more.”

  When I opened the door of the farmhouse, its hinges squeaked in protest, as if trying to tell me I had no right to be there. The hallway was chilly, and rain blew in after me and onto the polished floor. I shut the door and flicked on the old-fashioned overhead lights, deliberately averting my eyes from the photographs on the wall.

  To my left was a parlor dominated by an entertainment center. A shabby brown corduroy couch and an aging leather recliner faced it; the cushions on both had been slashed, their stuffing pulled out. A CD tower had been emptied, the discs opened and tossed on the floor, and videotapes had been similarly mistreated. Even the ashes in the fireplace had been sifted; streaks from them lay across the carpet.

  Not vandalism. A search. But no way of telling what the person or persons had been looking for.

  Across the hall was what seemed to be a multipurpose room containing an oak desk, a treadmill, a bookcase, and a big cluttered table. The desk drawers had been emptied onto the floor. I went through their scattered contents, nothing the usual canceled checks and bank statements and bills, both paid and unpaid, and all in Matty’s name. FAA notices and publications mingled with a few postcards and letters from people whose names were unfamiliar to me: “Kauai is beautiful and deserted this time of year. Next trip, you and John come too!” “Your aunt Martha is recovering nicely from her surgery. She sure wishes you could visit.” “Hey, old fishin’ buddy, how’s that handsome man you hooked?”

  The books on the shelves—mostly standard aviation references—had been disturbed but left there. No one had bothered with a stack of sectionals or Matty’s flight computer. When I looked over the table I saw her plotter lying next to a stack of holiday mail-order catalogs and felt a pang; she’d never again use the instrument to demonstrate to a student how to map out a cross-country course. For a moment I considered appropriating it as a keepsake, but then thought better of it. Zach liked to fly; maybe one day he’d have a use for both it and the flight computer.

  Back in the hallway I had to step over a pile of clothing that had been dragged from a closet under the stairway. I spotted a down jacket in Zach’s size and picked it up; the vest he’d worn to the city on Friday wasn’t nearly warm enough. In the kitchen I found broken dishes and utensils heaved this way and that; the door to the fridge stood open, milk and butter and vegetables spoiled.

  I shook my head, shut the door, and retraced my steps to the stairway. Matty and John’s bedroom had received a thorough going-over—bedclothes pulled off, pillows and mattress slashed, closet emptied. The sight of the upended dresser drawers gave me pause; I checked the things scattered around them until I located the velvet box containing John’s wedding ring, picked it up, and put it in my bag. He—or Zach, in the event his father never returned—would want it cared for.

  Zach’s room had received a more cursory search. Anxious to be out of there, I found his portable CD player, grabbed a handful of discs, and went to the closet. There was a large duffel on the shelf; I pulled it down and packed it full of clothing. A paperback book with a cover illustration of a garish moonscape lay broken-spined on the nightstand—probably the one he’d been reading and forgotten to bring along. I slipped it into the duffel and went downstairs.

  When I closed the front door, it gave another weak sound of protest—the house trying to tell me that even my intrusive presence was preferable to standing violated and abandoned.

  When I got back to the tree farm, Wes Payne was behind the sales desk, marking prices on tags with a purple grease pencil, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. When he heard me come in, he looked blank for an instant. Then he asked, “You get what Zach needs?”

  “Yes. The house is pretty badly torn up.”

  “Doesn’t look like the work of vandals, though.”

  “I’d
say somebody was trying to find out where John went. It’s impossible to tell if they learned anything or not.” I went up to the counter and leaned against it. “Do you mind if I keep the keys, in case Zach needs something else?”

  “Go ahead. I’ve got another set at home.”

  “Thanks. You feel up to answering some questions?”

  “Why not? Talking keeps me from brooding. You still working on locating John?”

  “Yes—for Zach’s sake now. Do you know if a doctor named Robert Sandler is the Seabrook family physician?”

  “Yeah. Originally he was Matty’s doc, but John and Zach took to seeing him too.”

  “Why would Matty have made an appointment to consult him about John?”

  “Did she?”

  “It was noted in her appointments book for three o’clock last Wednesday, the day before she called me. Could she have thought John might be ill?”

  “I suppose so, but it’s not likely he was.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, hell—no sense in hiding it now. It was supposed to be a Christmas surprise for Matty. John went to Dr. Sandler for a student pilot’s medical exam; he’s been taking flying lessons over at Petaluma Airport. Matty must’ve suspected and gone to Sandler to find out for sure.”

  “I thought John hated to fly.”

  “He did, but he said he’d get over it once he started his lessons. He wanted to be able to share flying with Matty and Zach.”

  “How long ago did he start?”

  “No more than six weeks. He’s been going at it pretty intensely, would be over there for a few hours three or four times a week, so he had to let me in on the secret because he needed me to tend the nursery while he was gone.”

  Interesting. John Seabrook, who displayed the knowledge of an experienced pilot, had been taking flying lessons. To me it said that his license had been under his real name; he couldn’t simply get current again but had had to start from square one. “Do you know the instructor’s name?”